


All Possible Futures

by Bookworm1063



Series: CO Countdown 2020 [25]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookworm1063/pseuds/Bookworm1063
Summary: “Magic mirror,” I say. “Show me… show me all the possible outcomes for a future shared between me and Simon Snow.”“There are only two,” it says.Baz uses a magic mirror to see all the possible outcomes of his future with Simon.
Relationships: future simon/baz
Series: CO Countdown 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026988
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2020





	All Possible Futures

**Author's Note:**

> There's a version of events included here that involves a major character death. I didn't tag it because it never really happens, it's just something that happens in a vision of a potential future, but if you don't want to read about that, please skip this one.   
> tw for non-graphic violence and death in the scene I mentioned above.

**Fifth Year**

**Baz**

I shouldn’t be here. I know that, but I’m desperate.

In more ways than one.

I don’t know what I was expecting from the goatherd, but it wasn’t this. Being invited inside and handed a mug of tea, having a blanket draped over my shoulders (I was too cold to refuse), and Ebb sitting across the fire from me, watching intently.

“So,” she says. “What can I do for ya, Baz?”

“I need… help,” I admit. Crowley, I hate everything about this. “I’m not powerful enough to work a certain spell on my own.”

“And you want me to cast it for ya,” Ebb says. “I mean, sure. Depending on the spell.”

I clear my throat. **“Mirror, mirror on the wall.”**

Ebb raises her eyebrows. “A magic mirror? You’re trying to make a magic mirror?”

“Something like that,” I say. “A personal project.”

Ebb snorts. “Personal project. Sure. You’re not the first person to wander in here, wanting a magic mirror so you could find out if your crush likes you back.”

“That’s not what—I don’t want it for that!” I snap. “I’m trying to see the future!” 

Maybe I shouldn’t have told her that, but she won’t help me if she thinks it’s something ridiculous like that. I’m not even going to entertain the idea of using it for _that._

I already know the answer, anyway.

“The future,” Ebb says.

I nod.

She stands and walks to the back of the room. There are shelves nailed to the walls, filled with cheap farm animal knickknacks. I think Snow brought her most of them.

There’s also a small mirror, wedged away in a back corner. Ebb takes it down and brings it to me.

“I swore I’d never make another of these again, so take this one,” she says. “Remember. One question per day. Baz—” I reach for the mirror, and she tugs it back a few inches— “If you ask to see your future, you’ll get one possibility. The path you’re currently on. Nothing you see here is a guarantee. Matter of fact, knowing about it probably makes it less likely. You’ll change all your choices based on whether or not you like what you saw. Understand?” When I nod, she holds the mirror out for me to take.

I do. Then I clear my throat, awkwardly.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Ebb says. “You remind me quite a bit of your mum.”

I wait until I’m sure I’ll have our room to myself for a few hours. Snow is down at dinner, stuffing his face, no doubt.

I sit cross-legged on my bed and pull out Ebb’s mirror.

As I watch, my face begins to morph. Shadows spill from the edges into the center, until it looks like I’m wearing a strange, dark mask. The mask speaks over my own face, though my lips don’t move in the reflection. It doesn’t quite look real, like a cheap special effect.

_“Ask your question, master, but beware. I speak only truth, show only fact. I tell only lies, display only stories. One question until the sun has risen and set once more over my glass. Speak.”_

That’s not cryptic or ominous at all.

“Magic mirror,” I say. “Show me… show me all the possible outcomes for a future shared between me and Simon Snow.”

I spent hours thinking about how I’d ask my question. I want to see what will really happen, even if I don’t know which future it is. And I want to know about Snow, not what I’ll have for dinner next week (squirrel, likely). 

The smokey face in the mirror swirls even faster.

_“There are only two,”_ it says.

Then its mouth opens, and it swallows me whole.

I’m standing on the lawn, watching two scenes play over each other, like a double projection.

In one, the school is on fire. The old yew tree creaks as flame whips up its branches, about to topple. Across the lawn, there are shouts and bangs and screams as tiny figures duel in the distance.

Over here, though, there are only four people.

Snow, the Sword of Mages in hand, his magic roiling across the battlefield. More fire swirls around the sword and twists around his hands. At his side, tears streak through the ash and soot on Bunce’s face, but her hand is steady as she holds her purple ring out over the body at her feet, murmuring spells.

It’s Wellbelove. This is just a vision, but I can tell she’s gone.

“Was it you?” Snow shouts. _“Was it you?”_

In the other scene, there’s another version of Snow standing almost exactly where the first one is. They’re glitching in and out of each other. The second Snow is dressed casually, not a sword in sight. He strides forward across a lawn that’s green and full of people, chatting and laughing, towards the doors of the school.

It’s too much. Thank magic the mirror only had two futures to show me. Just concentrating on these two is pulling my mind apart. I’m already getting a splitting headache.

I focus, and the second, calmer image pauses. The second Snow freezes, faded into a watermark against the fire. The hellscape comes into clearer focus, still moving.

Someone laughs. I turn, and it’s me.

I’m older—both versions of Snow are, too—but not by much. Maybe three or four years. This version of me is covered in blood. My fangs are out. My wand is in my hand.

“No,” Other Me says. “She’s been there for hours.”

Snow charges me. The sword slashes though the air, inches from my face. Other Me ducks, and Snow spins around to charge again.

“Simon!” Bunce calls. “Simon, they’re here! We have to go!”

Behind Bunce, an army blots out the horizon. Dark Creatures of every kind. There’s a figure in green at the head.

Is that the Mage? What the fuck is this future?

“Go play the hero, Snow,” Other Me says. “I’ll be here. Waiting.”

Other Me lunges forward. Snow raises his sword.

Bunce gasps. Snow screams. I watch myself get stabbed with more detachment than is probably healthy.

Snow tosses the sword away and catches my shoulders as Other Me falls. He’s kneeling on the ground, and I’m probably dying in his arms. Other Me has a hand on his cheek.

“Snow,” Other Me says. “Simon.”

“Baz,” he says. “Why didn’t you move? _Penny!”_

But Bunce is gone. I didn’t see where she went, but the place she was standing is a crater now. There’s no blood or anything, but it doesn’t look good.

“Baz,” Snow says. “Baz.”

He’s saying my name, and I’m dying in his arms, and I think I’ve had more than one dream that went like this.

And then Other Me says it.

“I love you.”

Simon presses Other Me’s hand into his cheek. “Baz…”

I’m dead, though.

Simon doesn’t move. There are tears streaming down his face. He’s covered in blood and dirt and he’s weeping over my corpse, and I have definitely had this dream before.

“I love you, too,” he whispers.

What. The. Fuck.

This is a _possible_ future?

The scene fades into the background as the second one takes focus. The other version of Snow continues his walk across the lawn.

Again, Bunce is at his side—I guess that happens in all futures. Wellbelove is nowhere to be seen.

I look around for another Other Me. I asked for a future that involves me and Snow, so I’m probably here somewhere.

Watford’s front doors open, and someone steps out into the sun.

There I am.

Snow breaks into a run and meets me at the bottom of the front steps. “So?” he asks. “How did it go?”

“Well, I think,” Other Me says. “Headmistress Bunce says if I keep my grades up next term, she’ll recommend me for the internship.”

“That’s amazing, Baz,” Simon says. “You’ve worked hard for this. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Snow,” Other Me says, but he says it softly.

“Hurry up, boys,” Bunce calls. She hadn’t followed Simon to the stairs. She’s standing right next to Real Me, a few feet away from Other Me and Snow. “Shep and Agatha are already waiting for us.”

“Let them wait,” Other Me says. Snow reaches for Other Me’s hand and pulls him closer, and then I’m watching myself kiss Simon Snow.

“Urgh,” Bunce says, but she says it affectionately, like she’s seen this too many times to really care. “Save it for later, please. We’re late.”

“I don’t care, Bunce,” Other Me says. He’s pulled away from Snow, because Other Me is an idiot. “Let me snog my boyfriend in peace.”

Snow smiles up at Other Me (who I’m more than a little jealous of), and I can’t believe it.

“I love you,” Snow says to Other Me. “And I’m still proud of you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Snow,” Other Me says. “I haven’t gotten the internship yet.”

Snow pouts, and Other Me kisses his cheek. “And I love you, too.”

The scene from before, the one I die in, comes back into focus, so I can see them both at once. Snow and I hold hands in one, walking through another Snow, weeping over my body.

The vision falls apart, and I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed again, struggling to understand what I just saw.

A week later, I’m back in front of Ebb’s cottage, the magic mirror tucked into my pocket.

I can’t get those images out of my head.

It’s the second scene that haunts me, though. I always knew I’d die by Snow’s hand, but the second one, where he loves me back, and we’re happy together, and I’m friends with Penelope Bunce, and _Simon Snow loves me back_ , is the one driving me mad.

(He told me he loved me in the other vision, too. In every possible future, he loves me, and I can’t live with him hating me, knowing that.)

I haven’t eaten. I’ve barely slept or had anything to drink. Snow has noticed; shaking him off long enough to get here was hell.

Ebb answers at the first knock. “I take it you didn’t like what you saw?”

I’m shaking. I cross my arms over my chest, but it doesn’t help.

“I need a memory spell,” I whisper.

An hour later, I’m sitting at the edge of the Wavering Wood, a drained rabbit a few feet away, with no idea how I got there. I suppose that’s what I get for waiting so long to hunt.

I stand up and start the walk back to Mummer’s House.


End file.
